{"id":4681,"date":"2022-02-02T04:15:08","date_gmt":"2022-02-02T04:15:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/farefwd.com\/?p=4681"},"modified":"2022-02-02T15:24:49","modified_gmt":"2022-02-02T15:24:49","slug":"groundhog-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/2022\/02\/02\/groundhog-day\/","title":{"rendered":"Groundhog Day"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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The Purgatory Film<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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If, in the world of seasonal holiday films, classic Christmas movies are often preoccupied with heaven, and Halloween horror films might play with some idea of hell, Groundhog Day <\/em>is the holiday movie that evokes purgatory.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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By Sara Holston<\/em><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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If, in the world of seasonal holiday films, classic Christmas movies are often preoccupied with heaven, and Halloween horror films might play with some idea of hell, Groundhog Day <\/em>is the holiday movie that evokes purgatory.<\/p>

The film follows TV weatherman Phil Connors, an arrogant and self-centered cynic who travels to Punxsutawny with his cameraman and his producer\u2014the kind and lovely Rita\u2014to report on the town\u2019s annual ceremony in which a groundhog predicts when spring will arrive. It is a gig Connors hates\u2014and he has no qualms about making that known. When a blizzard strands him and his team in Punxsutawny, Connors goes to bed frustrated and wakes up to find that, somehow, it is the morning of February 2 all over again.<\/p>

Thus, the purgatory film. Like the heaven-bound departed who must purge their sin and sanctify their souls before continuing on to eternal bliss, Connors finds himself in a situation that forces him to face his faults and fears and become a better person. In other such films, we usually see a guiding figure\u2014the angel Clarence from It\u2019s a Wonderful Life<\/em> or, in Bruce Almighty, <\/em>God Himself\u2014who shepherds the protagonist through their journey of self-discovery and personal growth. Connors, however, has no such mentor. He must navigate his nightmarish opportunity for himself, with only the ordinary people around him to nudge him in the right direction, as if doing so is a key part of Connors\u2019s transformation. \u00a0<\/p>

Unsurprisingly, then, Connors\u2019s quest for self-improvement begins with a few false starts\u2014in fact, it\u2019s some time before it begins at all. Connors\u2019s first unwitting guides are a pair of drunken barflies, who, when asked what they would do if they knew there would be no tomorrow, gush that no tomorrow means no consequences\u2014they could do anything they wanted. Connors takes their unintentional advice to heart. He gorges himself on cakes while smoking a cigarette; he punches an irritating acquaintance; he learns details about beautiful women that will help him seduce them on a future iteration of the day. At first, this mission energizes Connors; he goes to bed one night in prison and wakes up back in the inn with a newfound sense of triumph, smugly telling a disgusted Rita, \u201cI don\u2019t worry about anything anymore,\u201d and completely ignoring her comment that egocentrism is his defining characteristic.<\/p>

To Connors\u2019s surprise, however, his advance knowledge of the day and freedom from the consequences of his actions are not enough to get everything he wants; no matter how many times he tries, he cannot convince Rita to spend the night with him. Connors spends days crafting the perfect evening to win her over. Each time he toasts the wrong thing, or mocks her undergraduate degree, he returns the next time with a new response. Line-by-line he creates a day with Rita that leads them to his hotel room together\u2014but then comes the slap in the face. He\u2019s convinced her he\u2019s thoughtful, playful, sweet, and romantic\u2014he\u2019s even convinced her they\u2019re true kindred spirits, miraculously aligned on their hopes and dreams and passions. But, Rita says, it\u2019s just moving too fast. She still won\u2019t stay.<\/p>

When Connors, baffled, insists that he loves her, Rita replies: \u201cyou don\u2019t love me. You don\u2019t even know me.\u201d This connection between knowing and loving is familiar in Christian circles, but Rita takes it a step further by questioning what it really means to know someone. At first glance, it might appear that Connors does know Rita; from her superficial likes and dislikes to her deeper hopes and dreams, Connors has spent what could be a lifetime\u2019s worth of days learning a lot about her.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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Connors wants to become someone that he can love\u2014someone that, just maybe, Rita could love, too.<\/p>

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Rita seems to think what is missing is reciprocity\u2014that knowing someone is also consenting to being known. When she realizes Connors is just cataloguing facts about her for future reference, she asks, \u201cAre you making a list? Is this what you think love is?\u201d I suspect many of us would agree that such an accounting alone falls short of true intimacy and love. Connors doesn\u2019t care about her passions, and he\u2019s unwilling to share his dreams and fears with her in kind; everything he\u2019s said and done leading to his room that night is a calculated and practiced act. Everything that\u2019s happened between them is an illusion. When Rita realizes this, she tells him, \u201cI could never love anyone like you, because you don\u2019t love anyone but yourself.\u201d Connors\u2019s response reveals why he is so unable to open up: \u201cThat\u2019s not true. I don\u2019t even like myself.\u201d Connors needs to love himself enough to let her know him and love him, too. But he can\u2019t, and Rita storms out.<\/p>

The illusion shattered, Connors fails even to replicate the perfect day, let alone find the tweak that will get him that last step further with Rita. Despondent, he gives up. In a montage that is as grim as it is darkly comedic, Connors walks in front of a truck, jumps off a building, electrocutes himself in the bathtub\u2014he even kidnaps the groundhog that started it all and drives them both off a cliff to a fiery doom.<\/p>

At rock bottom, he finally confesses everything to Rita\u2014the first time we\u2019ve seen him be truly vulnerable. She decides to stay with him all day, hoping her presence will break the time loop. Rita becomes Connors\u2019s second guiding figure, musing that sometimes she wishes she had a thousand lifetimes, and trying to help Connors see his situation as something other than a curse. As he opens up, it is clear Connors is waiting for her to storm off after he inevitably says the wrong thing. At midnight, when Connors admits the day doesn\u2019t loop back until 6am, Rita teasingly admonishes him for letting her believe it was about to happen. He asks, \u201care you leaving then?\u201d and the expression on his face says he\u2019s resigned himself to her walking out. But she doesn\u2019t. Connors lets her see the real him and finds that, instead of getting hurt, he gets Rita to do the one thing he never could before\u2014she stays the night.<\/p>

Connors wakes in the morning as if hoping something has changed. But, of course, it hasn\u2019t. It\u2019s February 2, again, and he\u2019s alone. But this time, Connors faces the day with a new set to his shoulders. He has let Rita know him and found it isn\u2019t so bad. But he knows she still can\u2019t love him, for the same reasons he can\u2019t love himself\u2014he is, in his own words, a jerk. But Connors wants to become someone that he can love\u2014someone that, just maybe, Rita could love, too.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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The act of kindness itself is intrinsically valuable, even if it is \u201cunsuccessful\u201d or goes unrecognized.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Embracing her advice, he devotes his time to self-improvement, learning to play the piano and carve ice sculptures. More importantly, as he works to become someone who can love himself, Connors begins to emulate Rita\u2019s kindness\u2014the trait he loves most about her. At this point, we might expect a happy montage of Connors helping people as he becomes a better and more likeable person. And we do get that. But first we get another failure; the first person Connors tries to help is the homeless man he\u2019s been passing every morning without a second thought. No matter what Connors does, the man always dies by the end of the day. His inability to seduce Rita sent him into a spiral of depression, but this failure does not. Connors pushes on, helping as many people as he can. It is almost as if Connors finds that the act of kindness itself is intrinsically valuable, even if it is \u201cunsuccessful\u201d or goes unrecognized.<\/p>

Connors realizes the same is true of love, and this realization finally sets him free. Though it\u2019s Rita who inspired him to become the kind of person who might be worthy of her, he\u2019s no longer aiming just to get her into bed. He doesn\u2019t even seem to be actively trying to win her heart. After all, when Rita recognizes a change in Connors and invites him to coffee, he turns her down, citing \u201cerrands\u201d around town that turn out to be a series of good deeds for others. When their paths cross later, they finally spend a beautiful, unscripted evening together, and Connors tells Rita, \u201cno matter what happens tomorrow, or for the rest of my life, I\u2019m happy now. Because I love you.\u201d Like his kindness toward others, the mere act of loving her is enough. With this realization, Connors\u2019s \u201csanctification\u201d is complete, and he heads off into his paradise\u2014a new life in the town he has learned to love, with Rita at his side.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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Sara Holston<\/strong>\u00a0is an editor on an interactive story game in San Francisco, CA.<\/em><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Groundhog Day<\/strong> was directed by Harold Ramis and released by Columbia Pictures on February 12, 1993.<\/em><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If, in the world of seasonal holiday films, classic Christmas movies are often preoccupied with heaven, and Halloween horror films might play with some idea of hell, Groundhog Day is the holiday movie that evokes purgatory. 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